Unlocking Operational Efficiency Through Good Governance

How lessons learnt from the Financial Services sector are helping the Public sector to drive efficiency gains from the effective management of legislative and procedure changes.

Since the publication of the Gershon Review in 2004,operational efficiency has become a focal point and shared goal of both Central and Local government. Among other activities, the Public sector is seeking to drive efficiencies through streamlining and consolidating back-office processes, simplifying and standardising policies and processes, adopting shared best practices, and realising greater efficiency through the application of technology.

 Unlocking these efficiencies is no easy goal in an era where the pace of legislative and procedure change is accelerating – consistently moving the operational goalposts.

 Lessons from Financial Services

 The Financial Services industry has long understood the need, and the financial implication, of not having systems and processes in place to manage, disseminate and confirm legislative and procedural changes; lessons that are now being applied to the public sector through a partnership between Complinet and Synergy.

 A system of rules-based policy and procedure management that has been employed with great success within Financial Services is now proving increasingly popular with the public sector through the provision of partnership’s Regulation Essential Support (REGS) tool[1].

 Regulation Essential Support (REGS)

 REGS is an innovative online support and reference service for the management and communication of regulations and procedures, based on a platform that has already proven highly effective in the heavily regulated, efficiency-driven financial services sector.

 REGS allows an organisation to have a clearly demonstrable Communication Strategy, which is seen as a key line of enquiry for corporate governance by the Audit Commission. Key areas such as document control procedures, proactive dissemination of structures and processes and their updates and the monitoring and review of these are addressed in a time and cost effective way through the deployment of the REGS system.

 REGS provides a simple and effective method to both communicate with staff and effectively manage and track employees’ progress and development. It substantially reduces the burden of administration associated with document management, and is easily accessible to all staff via the Internet.

 REGS Case Study

 Two Local government agencies that are benefiting from deployment of the REGS system are the Benefits Units of the Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council and the South Gloucestershire Council.

 The system has delivered both Councils tangible results that support the overriding objectives of greater operational efficiencies.  Dave Pilling, Training and Quality Manager at Trafford, says that since implementing the solution, the improved workflow and the knowledge empowerment facilitated by the tool, has contributed to a marked improvement in staff retention and general morale. Staff have embraced the system with “over 90% using REGS and agreeing to related objectives with their team managers”.

 Moreover, REGs has “increased our accuracy by over 5%, and in some cases double this,“ says Pilling.

 “Thanks to the assistance of Synergy, we have been able to launch an extremely useful product, which has brought about performance improvements across the whole section.”

 Gloucestershire Council also testifies to the benefits of REGS.

 The Council were seeking an online procedure manual that would include the national legislation, case law as well as their own local policies and procedures.  “The decision to invest in REGS has given us the ability to locate all the reference material onto one central system.” said Paula Bird, Training Manager. Importantly, in an environment of change, we have been able to devise a structure to our polices and procedures.”

 The transparency of the system is also an asset, says Bird.  “REGS gives us the facility to track who has read new and revised documentation. We know that all staff have read published documentation and are confident that they are being kept up to date with important changes to legislation.”

 Like Trafford, Gloucestershire has also seen operational efficiencies in the interface it has with the public. “Since initial implementation, access has been expanded to include our Contact Centre staff. Using REGS, staff are able to quickly provide answers to common questions. We’re confident that our customers are given correct and consistent advice regarding both the legislation, and our own internal policies and processes.”

 Summary

 The partnership between Complinet and Synergy means that the significant experience of the Financial Services sector in maximizing operational efficiency can now be applied to the benefit of the Public sector. The drive for good corporate governance, demonstrable processes and the need to seek out operational efficiencies provide impetus for organisations to engage with Synergy to understand how REGS could impact their delivery.

 

Story Date

19 November 2007

More information

For more information about any of these news stories, please contact either Daniel Hanlon or David Field.

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0800 072 5900

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